


Breaking, Building, Fixing

by Violettavonviolet



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Gen, Genius Tony Stark, Howard Stark's A+ Parenting, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt Tony Stark, I Tried, Loneliness, Lonely Tony Stark, Not A Fix-It, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, POV Tony Stark, Tony Angst, Tony Stark Has Issues, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-02
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 08:22:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22084090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violettavonviolet/pseuds/Violettavonviolet
Summary: It all started while he was still young, really young.It started because he yearned for any kind of attention, and Tony never stopped.He built, built, built and then some more.He didn't stop building, until the moment, when there was nothing left to build.
Relationships: Edwin Jarvis & Tony Stark, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark, Jarvis (Iron Man movies) & Tony Stark, Maria Stark & Tony Stark, Tony Stark & Stark Robots
Comments: 3
Kudos: 64





	Breaking, Building, Fixing

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this thing yesterday evening, while I was at my grandmas for dinner, I didn't even plan this beforehand or anything, I just kinda wrote it, and here it is.   
> Also I realized how ridiculously hard it s to write something good on a phone, everyone who does, just wow, I admire you.   
> I think I'm going to post another fanfic this evening, or at least I'll try.   
> Anyway, I hope this is good, and that you can enjoy this.   
> I experimented a bit with my writing style, and I'm not exactly sure if it is good or not.   
> I have no beta reader, and am not native English speaker, so please feel free to correct me if my grammar or spelling is wrong somewhere.   
> Ok I wrote way too much again, so anyway   
> Enjoy!

It all started while he was still young, very young.   
He had been around three and desperate for attention, good or bad didn’t matter,   
his normal caretaker had the day off and the toddler was alone with nothing to do.   
His mother had been gone, doing whatever it was she was always doing and his father had been down at the workshop.   
He could still remember it as if it happened yesterday, but that was nothing special, he could remember everything that ever happened to him, past the age of two.   
In his quest to find something to do or get someone’s, anyone’s attention really, he had grabbed a piece of paper and started to draw something up.   
At the time he hadn’t been entirely sure what it was the he was drawing the semantics of, but it seemed like a good idea at the time and so he did. Later he would realize that it was that moment he started building or least think of something to build.   
It was there, that his coping mechanism for loneliness started, and it might not be the healthiest but it worked, at least for him. 

And so he built, built, built and then some more. 

Soon after, he built his first circuit board and then his first engine.   
And he didn’t stop there either.   
He built when he didn’t know what else to do,   
when he was in need of attention but was unable to even gain any,   
when he yearned for social interaction even if it was the slap he got from his fathers hand whenever he was drunk and caught his son out and about.

Angry at himself and his emotions, his desires that he knew wouldn’t be fulfilled, he built. He built the whole day after his father announced that he would be going to boarding school on the other side of the country.   
He built after his father was to busy to come to his high-school graduation, and he built even more when it was announced that he would be going to MIT at 14.   
Of course, there were times that he did gain some positive attention from somebody,   
but the somebody was mostly his butler, sometimes his mother and never his father.   
He still enjoyed the pats on the back he got from Jarvis sometimes, and relished in the hugs his mother gave him every few months.   
But he had learnt young that those moments were rare, should be treasured but never expected,   
that there was never a reason to cry, because he was no little sissy, he was a Stark and Stark man were made of iron.   
He thought it was a bittersweet thing, he was of the same material his friends were made of,   
and that was how it should be, wasn’t it?   
His friends were machines sure, but that didn’t make them any less treasuring worth for Tony, sure it would probably be fun to interact with other children sometimes but really? 

They wouldn’t understand him or if they did, they would be too old to play with.  
He had made his own friends himself, they were good friends too, and he was sure someday he would make himself a friend that would actually answer instead of just whirring every now and then.   
And so he built more and more each day, he got better and better at it until he was sure enough that it couldn’t be long before he would be able to figure out how to make complex robots, but for that, he would need to program so he learned that too.   
He had been terrified to go to college, not just because it was required to live on campus for at least the first two semesters and he would have to live with another person for that period but also because he feared that he wouldn’t be allowed to build so much.   
Both of those things turned out to be true, but for the first time,   
he wasn’t mad that he couldn’t build as much as he wanted, because he met someone,   
Rhodey his first and for a long time only human friend, who he could talked to, who talked back at him who understood his troubles and emotions far better than he himself did.   
The only times he went back to building was in the holiday seasons, the times he had to go back to the great cold mansion with nothing but his loving butler an absent mother and an abusive father.

Back there he would stay in his room for days on end, building and building and building but sometimes? Sometimes he would be talking, talking to Rhodey on his phone who weirdly liked his holidays, which was the first time Tony actively realized, he had a different relationship with his parents than others. Of course he knew that before, but he hadn’t actually realized it completely until then. It was a trigger for one of his longest binges, he had ever had.   
When he emerged again, he was just a little harder, and he was just a little stronger than before, it was then, that he actively accepted that he was not normal, that he never would be and that it wouldn’t be of use to try so hard to be.   
He stopped trying to get his fathers approval, and just accepted that his father wouldn’t approve of him, that he would never be enough and it wasn’t fine, but he couldn’t change it so he had to deal with it. 

He went back to college later that week, and maybe he didn’t look like he changed, but he felt like he did.   
Back in college, he finally accomplished one of his early childhood dreams, he build himself a sentient friend, and maybe it hurt when he won the MIT robotics contest and his father didn’t show up, but DUM-E was still worth it all .   
Tony built some more, went on with his life and graduated from college only to go immediately back, because he wanted a few phd‘s and not just a master, at least that was what he told his parents, in reality? He went back, because he couldn’t stand to be alone so much again, because he didn’t want to make weapons, just friends, and because Rhodey wasn’t done with university yet, and he couldn’t stand the thought of losing his only real outside relationship, his honeybear.   
His social interactions were still weird but they had significantly improved from where he started.   
Rhodey had helped and explained everything that had to be watched when interacting with another human being, and Tony felt like he finally understood why so many maids didn’t want to talk to him at home. 

He liked machines a lot more, with them it didn’t matter how he looked, no questions where asked, they didn’t judge him because he didn’t know how to react when somebody cried.   
They had no stupid emotions other than what could be expressed in 0 and 1. Sometimes Tony thought that maybe everything would be easier if he too, was a product of 0 and 1.   
And then it happened, he got a call in the middle of December, one night and everything was destroyed. He didn’t care about Howard, actually he was rather relieved but his mother? Sure she had been absent a lot but she still tried her best, she had not been a good mother but she had tried, which was so much more than Howard ever did.   
He would miss her hugs her low voice, smooth and soothing, and exactly what a young Tony had needed to feel safe.   
He went on the longest binge that he would ever have, nearly three weeks of pure working until exhaustion and then some more. The only thought on his mind was building, and so he did, he didn’t stop until there was something new, something never seen before, something so special that it would need at least another century for anyone but Tony to figure it out. 

JARVIS was born to desperation and sadness and his very first priority was to keep those things away from his ‘father’ at all cost.   
The very first thing he saw, was his creator crying on the floor to exhausted to make a clear thought. 

The next years rushed bye, and it seemed to go uphill for Tony, he partied, inherited a company and to the outside world, he seems to have the perfect life. Of course, nobody knew that it was nearly painful for him to have to interact with so many humans all at once, and nobody knew that he sometimes wanted to cry so badly, because of the weapons he made, but couldn’t because Stark men don’t cry, Stark men are made of iron. 

It wasn’t just bad, he met Pepper and then Happy, which improved his overall mental health greatly, but that didn’t just fix his problems.   
Then Afghanistan happens and nothing was okay anymore, he had a thing in his chest trauma for days on end and lost a valuable friend.   
Really, he was part machine now, but it didn’t make things easier one bit, so he made himself an armor too, to complete the robot look, which didn’t help either but it did good for the world, so he kept it. 

Of course his heart betrayed him, which was technically not true, rationally he knew that too, but it did nothing to stop the feeling itself, sure it might prove that he has a heart but at what cost? He had one human less to regularly interact with, and had to question everything that Obadiah had ever said to him, realizing that he had been manipulated by a man that was supposed to be his godfather. 

And then his heart betrayed him again, this time for real, it was poisoning him from the inside out, it was painful and he couldn’t do anything to stop it, making him feel as useless as he had felt with three when he hadn’t been able to properly express his thoughts but they existed anyway and they bothered him to tears. 

And then his father finally allowed him to build, after all those years, calling him a creation which hurt, and didn’t help one bit with his feelings of being a living machine.   
But he shoved those feelings away, locked them up, never to be seen again.   
He did what he did best, building. He build the stress away and the fight with his friend which left him bleeding on the inside, he build away the feeling of betrayal that somebody who had worked for him had been spying on him.   
It didn’t really help, but he told himself it did and shoved the feelings into a corner of his mind, to be forgotten there forever. 

There are many instances he builds away his feelings over the next year, and especially after New York he disappears for two weeks trying to comprehend what happened, while also trying not to feel hurt because of his childhood hero belittling him.   
The others move into his tower over time, but it does nothing for his anxiety and ptsd, it makes it worse even. So he builds some more stuff, upgrades everyone’s armor, develops better technology and tries to not visit the common area when possible.   
He drinks more and Pepper breaks up with him. And he understands, he really does, but it still hurts, so Tony does the thing that he always does, he builds.   
He built, built, built, and then some more. 

More things happen and the years go bye even faster than before, and he drowns in his work, but it’s also the only thing that keeps him alive some days.   
His work is to valuable, so he never runs risk of being useless.   
He still has nightmares from New York, from the wormhole, from the things that are waiting in the dark, but nobody cares about his fears and worries, why would they?   
They have their own lives to live, and it is far easier to shun him and say that he’s crazy than facing the ugly truth.   
And so Tony built, built, built and then some more, 

Only this time, things go wrong. 

Ultron was never supposed to happen, not like this, and the very thing that makes up his most trusted being, destroys it, and now JARVIS is gone, he doesn’t know what to do, he fears building, because what if? 

What if everything goes wrong again? 

But he has never learnt to cope with things differently, so eventually he goes back to building, and he builds and builds until he forgets the horror of reality, only that he can’t, because JARVIS is gone and he doesn’t know what to do without him.   
He needs a replacement, and sure it might not be fair for FRIDAY to be seen as a replacement, but she is and they both know it.   
She helps nonetheless, and slowly Tony learns to trust his own creations again.   
And then the Civil War happens and in the privacy of his mind, Tony is relieved. He had been waiting for the other shoe to drop after Ultron,  
and Captain America’s betrayal doesn’t sting as much, because he knew that he didn’t trust him.   
At least that’s what he tells himself, and if he does it often enough, surely it will actually be the truth someday, right? 

Right?

And he goes back to working every possible minute of the day, only now, he can’t just fix the situation with building something new, now he has to be manipulative and try to get his own agenda trough, and it hurts, and he doesn’t like it one bit, but he knows that he has to bring the others back because the aliens are coming, and it doesn’t matter if they are ready or not. 

The least bit of hope for anything remotely resembling a friendship with the captain, is destroyed in a icy bunker in Siberia, his last bit of respect and trust for his former team leader breaks into a thousand parts, together with his arc reactor, but the others doesn’t care, they just leave him behind, alone, hurt and without any hope for help.   
The captain leaves him behind, so he can go live wit Barnes, the murderer of his mother.   
He knows that that isn’t really fair on his part, rationally he knows that Barnes is a victim just like his mother, but you don’t watch a video of a man killing your mother, while standing next to him, without growing angry at that very man. 

So he is left behind once more, and eventually he rescues himself, but his heart is broken, quite literally, and he gets to be a half machine, once more.   
He’s building again, building to help his mothers killer and he feels so very guilty, but he tells himself it’s okay, because Barnes couldn’t exactly do anything against Hydra. 

It still hurts, when the rouges arrive back in the Us and not once thank him for making it possible, he bites his tongue and doesn’t comment, but internally he’s cringing every time he sees one of them.   
So he does what he does best, he builds, builds, builds, and represses his emotions behind a thick wall of arrogance and silliness, and he doesn’t want to cry every minute of the day, he doesn’t. 

And so he builds, builds, builds and then some more. 

But in the end, it’s all useless.   
He breaks one last time, and he stops fixing himself, because there is nothing left to fix.

**Author's Note:**

> This is it, did you like it?   
> I normally don't write these sort of fanfics, especially with an ending like this, but it kinda wrote itself and I was not objecting, so here it is.   
> It would be very kind of you to leave a comment, I love to read your opinions, ideas, suggestions etc.   
> bye,   
> Vio


End file.
